Teams & Riders Nairo Quintana discussion thread

[Pricey_sky]

Re:

I guess Froome does not consider Quintana a threat for the Tour de France. Or maybe a third threat after Porte, Contador and Bardet. Not even Valverde. Is he playing mind games with them?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/chris-froome-my-biggest-tour-de-france-threats-are-porte-contador-bardet/

I am understand accepting the potential of being depleted after the Giro. But would he rather chase Bardet than Quintana if he finds himself in a critical situation ?

I think it comes down to what we've seen over recent seasons with riders attempting the double, its much easier to have the Vuelta as a 2nd GT as obviously everyone has a certain level of fatigue at that race. At the Tour your coming up against riders who will be in top form.

Everyone at the Giro looked spent at the end of that final week, it will surely be tough to follow that up with a super competitive three weeks in the Tour.

 

[DanielSong39]

Re:

I guess Froome does not consider Quintana a threat for the Tour de France. Or maybe a third threat after Porte, Contador and Bardet. Not even Valverde. Is he playing mind games with them?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/chris-froome-my-biggest-tour-de-france-threats-are-porte-contador-bardet/

I am understand accepting the potential of being depleted after the Giro. But would he rather chase Bardet than Quintana if he finds himself in a critical situation ?

Harmless trash-talking and mind games; it's all part of the sport.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Im more eager to read members post on the Hammer Tour than in this thread recently, what an absolute shithole this has turned into

 

[MovistarRider]

Re:

Im more eager to read members post on the Hammer Tour than in this thread recently, what an absolute shithole this has turned into

Trash-talking and being anti Quintana is the new hype, didn't you know? Apparently some are dying to play this game!

 

[MovistarRider]

Re:

I guess Froome does not consider Quintana a threat for the Tour de France. Or maybe a third threat after Porte, Contador and Bardet. Not even Valverde. Is he playing mind games with them?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/chris-froome-my-biggest-tour-de-france-threats-are-porte-contador-bardet/

I am understand accepting the potential of being depleted after the Giro. But would he rather chase Bardet than Quintana if he finds himself in a critical situation ?

Well, normally Alejandro usually has that one bad day that phucks up his GC..if he can avoid that..who knows what he is capable of? He is in great form and the route potentially favours him. I have high hopes for Alejandro. But then again, i'm a Movistar Team fan

In Nairo's case, we will have to wait and see. Normally he seems to have a higher level of riding in his second GT. But how much energy did the Giro cost him? Probably enough being not able to beat Froome i guess.

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

I guess Froome does not consider Quintana a threat for the Tour de France. Or maybe a third threat after Porte, Contador and Bardet. Not even Valverde. Is he playing mind games with them?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/chris-froome-my-biggest-tour-de-france-threats-are-porte-contador-bardet/

I am understand accepting the potential of being depleted after the Giro. But would he rather chase Bardet than Quintana if he finds himself in a critical situation ?

Why would he feel threatened by Valverde in a GT ? It's not as if Valverde has had a great spring and not failed in longer races before. You ride the Giro you will pay for it in the Tour even Contador admitted as much. If Quintana had coasted to victory in the Giro then Froome may have said otherwise but even if he had, the recovery in the third week of the Tour will always be an issue unless all the favorites drop out or have misfortune. And if Quintana went into the Giro underdone how did he expect to win the double ?

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

Im more eager to read members post on the Hammer Tour than in this thread recently, what an absolute shithole this has turned into

Welcome to my world!

 

[Ataraxus]

Re: Re:

Needless to say, I'm with Netserk.
Lol

Even with the Giro in line, he was still flicking elbows, not doing proper pulls and asking for others to basically tow him, not to mention his pathetic riding on the other mountain stages in the 3rd week, especially the stage to Bormio.

Lol, this is so much over the top. I cannot take this serious anymore

Which part of my post do you disagree with?
You are calling him pathetic because he doesn't have it, the ability to sustain an attack. It has become so ridiclous at this point.
Have you ridden bikes? Competively? Ffs, you can't go faster than your body allows you do. Now deal with that. God it has become annoying at this point.

I am the first one who have bashed and called him pathetic about his elbow and finger signs on the road to Asiago (page 327).
And the reason I called him so, is none of those you mentioned above.
-When Pantani dropped Zulle and Tonkov in the dolomitic stage in 1998, he rode away with Guerrini and did the majority of the pulls during all the climbs and eventually gifted him the stage win.
-When Andy Schleck was away in the Galibier , Evans started pulling with 10 km to go fully aware he was towing Frank Schleck to the line and barring the risk that even Frank Schleck might have distanced him.
..
..
(I can carry on for life)
..
After Tom D. was distanced, Quintana was the contender in pole position to win the Giro given Dumoulin had been distanced enough. He had the option of pulling at least as much as Nibali and Pinot, slightly increasing the chance of putting himself into difficulty and also increasing the chance of distancing Tom D. even more.
Instead he chose the option of doing 5-10 seconds pulls himself and signing Pinot and Vincenzo with elbows and Fingers to do half a minute ones. This is translated into trying to win the race on the shoulders of the third and fourth placed and that's what makes it pathetic.

If you want to win so badly by showing elbows and fingers, you might as well want to risk a bit more by striking pedals at the front. At least as he second-most and third most favourite.

 

[LeSensei]

If Quintana - the world's best climber - goes blank this year (which rather seems the case) I call failure. Again.

 

[MovistarRider]

Re:

If Quintana - the world's best climber - goes blank this year (which rather seems the case) I call failure. Again.

What do you consider a failure?

If Nairo can achieve the podium combined with a good showing in the mountains, with not loosing alot of time on Froome in the GC, and a possible stage win would you consider that a failure? Everyone knows how hard it is to ride the Giro and Tour double these days. A second place in the Giro and another podium in the Tour, with only 2-3 minutes behind lets say Froome in the GC, wouldn't be a failure for me.

Also keep in mind that if Nairo podiums at the TDF he will become the first and only rider since Eddy Merckx to score 4 consecutive podiums in the GT's. That alone would be a special achievement. If Nairo goes on and win the Tour in the foreseeable future surely that should cement his place as an all-time great. Nairo's consistency in the GT's is truly something remarkable. In this day and age to podium at 4 consecutive GT's i consider not that far below the most successful streak in grand tour history by Merckx set in 1972/73.

But instead of looking at the positives people will find a way to trash talk Nairo. Sad reality of today.

 

[Rollthedice]

Don't know about that 4 podiums since Merckx. Vincenzo Nibali has 4 in a row, 2012 Tour, 2013 Giro and Vuelta, 2014 Tour.

 

[yaco]

Re:

Don't know about that 4 podiums since Merckx. Vincenzo Nibali has 4 in a row, 2012 Tour, 2013 Giro and Vuelta, 2014 Tour.

It is four consecutive GT's.

 

[MovistarRider]

Re:

Don't know about that 4 podiums since Merckx. Vincenzo Nibali has 4 in a row, 2012 Tour, 2013 Giro and Vuelta, 2014 Tour.

We're talking about consecutive GT's. Nairo stands now on 3 podiums, one of only 2 riders who has achieved that. Could make it 4 at the TDF. How would you rate that?

 

[Rollthedice]

Re: Re:

Don't know about that 4 podiums since Merckx. Vincenzo Nibali has 4 in a row, 2012 Tour, 2013 Giro and Vuelta, 2014 Tour.

We're talking about consecutive GT's. Nairo stands now on 3 podiums, one of only 2 riders who has achieved that. Could make it 4 at the TDF. How would you rate that?

Vincenzo's are consecutive, those were the GTs he rode in 2012/13/14, I don't understand what you want to say with Nairo.

 

[Escarabajo]

Re: Re:

Don't know about that 4 podiums since Merckx. Vincenzo Nibali has 4 in a row, 2012 Tour, 2013 Giro and Vuelta, 2014 Tour.

We're talking about consecutive GT's. Nairo stands now on 3 podiums, one of only 2 riders who has achieved that. Could make it 4 at the TDF. How would you rate that?

Vincenzo's are consecutive, those were the GTs he rode in 2012/13/14, I don't understand what you want to say with Nairo.

Nibali didn't ride Vuelta 2012.

 

[Red Rick]

For a rider who is consider the best climber in the world and who went into the Giro talking about winning both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, winning neither can not be anything but a failure. That does not mean that a failure is not a respectable performance though. And the term 'failure' highly depends on expectation, and we can only guess which expectations Quintana had himself

 

[MovistarRider]

Total GT podiums of the active riders.

Some interesting stuff. 6 out of 9. If you count the Vuelta of 2014 out, where he crashed, it makes it 6 out of 8. He made his GT debut in 2012 at the Vuelta and was there to support Alejandro with no GC ambitions. So basically from the 7 GT´s he attended with GC ambitions and/or didn´t pull out he podiumed 6 of them.

Not bad Nairo, not bad at all

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

Don't know about that 4 podiums since Merckx. Vincenzo Nibali has 4 in a row, 2012 Tour, 2013 Giro and Vuelta, 2014 Tour.

We're talking about consecutive GT's. Nairo stands now on 3 podiums, one of only 2 riders who has achieved that. Could make it 4 at the TDF. How would you rate that?

Vincenzo's are consecutive, those were the GTs he rode in 2012/13/14, I don't understand what you want to say with Nairo.

Consecutive as in all GTs, not just the ones he entered.

 

[MovistarRider]

Re: Re:

Don't know about that 4 podiums since Merckx. Vincenzo Nibali has 4 in a row, 2012 Tour, 2013 Giro and Vuelta, 2014 Tour.

We're talking about consecutive GT's. Nairo stands now on 3 podiums, one of only 2 riders who has achieved that. Could make it 4 at the TDF. How would you rate that?

Vincenzo's are consecutive, those were the GTs he rode in 2012/13/14, I don't understand what you want to say with Nairo.

You are misunderstood..were not talking about being on the podium 4 times consecutive in the space of 2 or 3 years. We´re talking about being in 4 consecutive GT´s and podium them all..you see?

Tour de France 2013 (Nairo Podiumed) was followed by Vuelta Espana (Where Nairo podiumed again) followed by Giro d'Italia (Where Nairo podiumed again). At the TDF Nairo can make it 4 out of 4 podiums in 4 consecutive GT´s. Nibali, nor any other driver except for Merckx, has never podiumed at 4 consecutive GT´s.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

If Quintana - the world's best climber - goes blank this year (which rather seems the case) I call failure. Again.

If he gets a top-3 at the Tour (big if), I wouldn't call this year a total failure. Still, going for the double was a big mistake.

 

[AlexNYC]

If Quintana - the world's best climber - goes blank this year (which rather seems the case) I call failure. Again.

If Nairo manages to podium the Tour, it would be a very good season. I don't see how anyone could spin that as a failure, but of course, it would be difficult for Nairo to live up to the expectations of some people in this forum.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

Also keep in mind that if Nairo podiums at the TDF he will become the first and only rider since Eddy Merckx to score 4 consecutive podiums in the GT's. That alone would be a special achievement.

But instead of looking at the positives people will find a way to trash talk Nairo. Sad reality of today.

Nah, hardly anyone cares about that sort of thing. Maybe if you're trying to look at the "positives".

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

If Quintana - the world's best climber - goes blank this year (which rather seems the case) I call failure. Again.

If Nairo manages to podium the Tour, it would be a very good season. I don't see how anyone could spin that as a failure, but of course, it would be difficult for Nairo to live up to the expectations of some people in this forum.

Let's not forget that it's mostly the Quintana fans that are setting the bar high. We're hearing he's an ultramythical climber, soon to be an all-time great etc. etc. Yet he's not living up to that hype. Of course people will be critical. Either he's performing below his standards or Quintana fans have raised unrealistic expectations among the other forum members.

 

[portugal11]

Re: Re:

If Quintana - the world's best climber - goes blank this year (which rather seems the case) I call failure. Again.

If Nairo manages to podium the Tour, it would be a very good season. I don't see how anyone could spin that as a failure, but of course, it would be difficult for Nairo to live up to the expectations of some people in this forum.

Let's not forget that it's mostly the Quintana fans that are setting the bar high. We're hearing he's an ultramythical climber, soon to be an all-time great etc. etc. Yet he's not living up to that hype. Of course people will be critical. Either he's performing below his standards or Quintana fans have raised unrealistic expectations among the other forum members.

He isn't even close in reaching contador's climbing ability (pre ban), how is he even compared to pantani?

 

[Põhja Konn]

Quintana's base level is so high he very rarely ends up out of the podium, but his weaknesses are significant enough that more often than not there is someone who can beat him for the overall win.